"Who?" The soldiers who were guarding the workshop hurriedly raised their weapons, trying to protect this area from intruders.
On the other hand, the people from the Ardagan family instantly recognized both of them.
"My lord!"
"My lord!"
The people rushed to them, confusing the rest of the people.
When the soldiers heard about the identities of these two people, they panicked and hurriedly sheathed their swords.
Noel and Anna came out of the car.
"I heard the prototype is done, so I'm here." Noel waved his hand. "Where is the one in charge?"
"Please wait. We'll call them here." The soldiers rushed back, knowing what they should do. They didn't think they were good enough to handle Noel and Anna, so it was better to escape and get the people in charge.
It didn't take too long before three people came out. One of them was a middle-aged man who previously worked on the catapult. He was one of the blacksmiths in the Ardagan family.
The second person was a man in his early thirties, but because of his tired eyes and sloppy clothes, he looked like he was older than his actual age.
The last person was a woman wearing a rather formal suit. She had an uptight expression as she seemed to be reprimanding the sloppy man beside her while fixing her glasses.
No matter what she said, the sloppy man didn't bother changing. When they arrived, the blacksmith hurriedly greeted Noel and Anna.
"Thank you for coming, my lord and my lady."
"Mhmm. Thank you for your hard work, Mr. Vine." Noel smiled.
"!!!" The man looked surprised when Noel called his name. He never thought that such an important person would actually remember a nobody like him. He hurriedly replied, "Yes, sir. Thank you very much."
Noel then turned to the other two, who seemed to be the representatives of the Greenwood Kingdom.
"Hello, Earl Aradgan. It's an honor to have you here." The woman politely greeted him. "I am Sophia, the manager of this project. Next to me is the chief engineer, Zel."
"It's a pleasure to meet you. I am the one working on the air balloon in the Greenwood Kingdom."
"Noel is fine. And nice to meet you. I've come here after hearing that the prototype is done."
"Certainly." The woman tilted her body while extending her hand, showing a quite big boat behind them. There seemed to be a kind of balloon directly attached to this boat. "Please follow me."
Noel nodded. While walking, Noel waved his hand to the battlefield as if thanking them for their hard work.
When they arrived, Noel could see the boat in detail.
The boat itself wasn't as big as he originally thought. It could definitely fit a hundred people, but it would be extremely cramped.
There weren't a lot of things inside since this was just a prototype.
"How is this going to work?" Noel asked.
"Let me explain it." Sophia pointed at the wooden boat and said, "Normally, we will be filling the balloon with an inert gas, one that is lighter than the air to pull the entire boat up. In a normal balloon, we are able to maintain the altitude by adjusting the flame, but because of your rune, we are attaching the balloon directly to the boat and making some adjustments in the design.
"However, this design will cause the balloon to continue to rise until it reaches the maximum point. We are thinking about tackling this problem with weight, but we also have to measure the amount of weight that the rune can withstand."
Noel asked, "If you put the weight on it, how is it going to go up and down? Or is it using the runes?"
"Yes." Zel nodded. "We are calculating the amount of weight. According to the rune book, there are Enhance Forward Rune and Falling Rune. I believe that we can actually use these two runes all over the airship.
You can say that we will be activating the Falling Runes all the time to give a downward force. If we want to go up, we simply need to turn a few off, allowing the air to pull this airship into the sky. Once we reach our desired altitude, we will activate a few Falling Runes to balance the upward force, which will result in the airship levitating into the air. Once we want to go down, we will activate all the Falling Runes to go down.
"The forward movement will be supplied by the Enhance Forward Rune. Because of that, the design is an ellipse, which will break the air in front. We will use the rudder for the side motion."
Noel thought for a moment before saying, "You should know that I want a few types of airship, right?"
"Yes. To be fair, the concept is similar. So, we will just adjust their size and other things. There's no need to create it from scratch."
"So, the change will mostly be on the runes?"
"Indeed."
Noel looked at the airship while imagining the airplane he saw when his ancestor showed it to him.
"Have you prepared the demon's blood?"
"Yes. All of them are stored in the warehouse. We have prepared a Peak Level Demon's blood for this test."
"Alright. I will draw the runes." Noel nodded. "Show me all the places to draw the runes."
"Then, I'll guide you…" Sophia stepped forward, but Noel hurriedly raised his hand to stop him.
"No. I think you should guide her to the Rune Magician training place. We'll be testing this directly against the demons to see its effectiveness. And Rune Magicians will be very suitable for this." Noel pointed at Anna.
Sophia didn't know what to say. She didn't seem to have made any blunders, which angered Noel. At the same time, it was true that Zel would be more suitable for this task.
"…" Sophia remembered that she shouldn't offend Noel. Even though she disliked the arrangement, it was better to agree with him. "I understand."
"Tell Felicia that we will be killing some demons, will you?" Noel winked at Anna.
"Of course." Anna looked excited, as if she knew what Noel was planning to do.
Now that only he and Zel left, they immediately worked on the runes. After showing the places, Zel had to move away so that he couldn't see the secret of the Ardagan family.
Although it was a shame, he didn't say much, considering he only wanted this airship to be completed.
Most of the time, they were inside a hidden compartment. It seemed that they were planning to connect all the hidden compartments so that they could create a main control room that took care of the operation of the airship.
As for the ship itself, it was a compact ship with a lot of windows. But they closed it for the time being because, when they started moving, the air would be sucked in. According to Zel, it was the hardest part to design.
It took a while, but he was satisfied with the work. All the runes could be hidden with a layer of additional skin, so it didn't matter if it looked ugly now.
"Is this all?" Noel asked.
Zel nodded with a serious expression. "Yes. The Spiritual Barrier Rune will be protecting the airship from attacks. Most of the time, the enemies won't be strong enough to destroy the Spiritual Barrier Rune, so this should be very safe.
"The Enhance Forward Runes and the Falling Runes are all in place. If we add the Floating Rune, we will be able to bring more luggage.
"But for now, I think this is enough. We will gather more data and create an even better airship."
When they came out, Felicia and Anna had been waiting outside along with a lot of soldiers. It seemed that they were pretty curious about this airship and what Noel wanted to do with it.
Noel said, "You take care of the preparation and station all the people needed. After that, we will board the airship and try it. You're not scared of heights, aren't you?"
"I'm thankful for your invitation. Since Mr. Noel is going to test it personally, as the chief engineer, there's no way I will stay on the ground." Zel then moved to Sophia and instructed everyone on how to operate it.
Meanwhile, Noel walked to Felicia. "How are you? How is the training going?"
"Thanks to your way of teaching, we have five squads of Rune Magicians, totaling fifty people. The Greenwood Kingdom has the same number."
"What about the runes?"
"They are mostly Spirit Practitioners, so they can't use intermediate runes like Spiritual Barrier Rune or Rain of Light Rune. But they are able to use the Rune Sword and Rune Spear. There are four people who are Spirit Masters right now and they are capable of using the Rain of Light Rune."
"Well, the airship is more suitable for a weapon like our ballistas, but this should be enough for now."
"What are we going to do here?"
"Just shoot some demons. I'll show you what to do later." Noel shrugged.
It took them two hours to prepare for the flight. The balloon was fully filled with air and they had brought a lot of demon crystals for this one test.
Noel invited everyone, including the blacksmiths who worked on this project to test it. Some followed, some stayed.
In total, 58 people entered the airship. It was a bit cramped, but this was fine.
"Let's begin!" Noel gave a nod to Zel and Sophia.
Sophia announced, "Deactivate the Falling Runes!"
The staff hurriedly did as they were told and the ship began to rise from the ground.
"Oh! We're going to fly." Noel looked amused while Anna was looking through the window to see the airship leaving the ground. "We're flying!"
